The full list of donations Lissa Lucas included in her prepared remarks:

CHARLOTTE LANE – Kanawha County (D35) $9,500/$48,770 about 20%

Delegate Lane has received money from:

AEP $2,000.00

MARATHON $2,000.00

FIRSTENERGY $2,000.00

DOMINION $1,500.00

EQT $1,000.00 << 5 of the top 6

SOUTHWESTERN ENERGY $500.00

NEXTERA ENERGY $250.00

WVOIL MARKETERS ASSOC. $250.00

TIMOTHY P ARMSTEAD CAMPAIGN CMTE – $150.00

JOHN SHOTT Mercer (D27) – $11,250/$64,350 – about 17%

FIRSTENERGY $2,000.00

App Power $2,000.00

STEPTOE & JOHNSON $2,000.00 – Gas and oil Law firm

CONSOL ENERGY $1,000.00

EQT $1,000.00

MARATHON $1,000.00

DOMINION $1,000.00

NOBLE ENERGY $500.00

GOPAC $250.00

MARKWEST ENERGY $250.00

WV LAND & MINERAL OWNERS PAC $250.00

The WV Mineral Owners Coalition is AGAINST this bill. This PAC is unrelated appears to be a front for out-of-state resource barons and attorneys who represent the energy industry.

JASON HARSHBARGER (Ritchie D7) $3500/$9300 – 38%

Harshbarger – He works for Dominion, and donated $2000 to his campaign. If you count that, he got 59% of his campaign cash from energy interests $5500/$9300 –

DOMINION $1,000.00

EQT CORP $500.00

FIRSTENERGY CORP $500.00

FREDRIK ERIC NELSON JR CAMPAIGN CMTE $500.00 (Delegate Nelson’s top donors are the same top donors as everyone I’ve spoken about here, and in fact he received $23K from anti-property rights corporations like Dominion, EQT, AEP.)

After years of experience broadly in this sector, the thing that never fails to amaze me is how cheap our representatives are. Selling out your constituents is awful... But for less than 10000$... I mean just get a fucking side job.

Edit: This got more traction overnight (I’m in Australia) than I expected. I feel I should clarify; I’m not having a dig at America in any way. And yes, the same thing certainly happens here too. I’m in no position to holier than thou. But to see this woman physically removed mid-speech when she’s playing exactly by the rules.. it’s hard to take. I wish her every success.

I mean you joke... but at least then I'd feel like my vote was worth something ;) in all seriousness, it'd be nice if these folks had placed some value on the people they're selling out. I remember back when I lived in NJ reading about politicians literally taking suitcases of money and thinking to myself "...fuck me that's not even a good deal"

You'd need more than that. They have money. What can you give them that money cannot obtain? That's what people are missing with these donors. Can you give him an expensive vacation package, all expenses paid? What about inside deals on real estate or other assets? You'd need those kinds of connections to drive influence over a politician. $2,000 isn't even a lot of money. If I were a politician I definitely wouldn't risk my career for a puny $2,000 donation. No. You'd have to cut that politician some kind of exclusive inside deal that would lead to them either saving or obtaining tens of thousands of dollars.

Because favors and connections are a larger part of it. The $150 is small change. So is the $2000 for that matter. The $2000 is a mere tip for kicking off the brokering of a complex system of trusts, favors and power that makes the country run.

"Your son is due to graduate soon. We'll hire him for a good salary if you pass this amendment. Oh and here's $2000."

This is the first type of vetting that every. single. politician. should have to go through before being elected and reelected. Do not trust what a politician says, no matter how sweet it sounds. Look where their money is coming from and that will tell you how they'll vote.

Unless there is an explicit promise (an implied promise is not enough) of pay to play, there's nothing you can take to court. So it's legal bribery.

Shockingly, our lawmakers have written very few laws that police themselves in any meaningful way.

It's one of the reasons that Trump is able to get away with actions that sound blatantly criminal... He gets away with it because lots of politicians were doing it before, just less blatantly, so they had zero reason to make any sort of law that would punish their behavior or treat it as a criminal offense. The bar for getting punished for bribery/pay-to-play is so high that you'd basically have to get caught on video explicitly promising something in exchange for money, leave evidence of the transaction, then act on it.

Using one specific example, only because the players are very well known and so are their actions:

How much money did Verizon and AT&T donate to Obama's 2008 campaign, and did that have anything to do with him changing his schedule, flying back to DC, and voting against his stated position on telecom immunity?

Did the $400K check Charlie Black got from the telecom industry have anything to do with McCain doing the exact same thing?

Is there any way for us to really know? Certainly nothing you could bring to court.

They wanted her to talk about just the bill. I'm not a lawyer, but it feels like it would track that talking about the people signing off on the bill, being paid by the people who the bill would help, would mean that you're talking about the bill.

I really hate this kind of shit. It's like when Trump was going to throw that $200,000 per person dinner until the government shutdown forced him to cancel. These are supposed to be representatives of the people...

There is a movement underway to hold a convention of states to pass amendment essentially overturning Citizens United. So far something like 6 states (NJ, IN, UT, CA, VT...?) have passed a resolution agreeing to attend the convention if it happens (and only 2/3 states are needed to pass the amendment).

I listened to the More Perfect podcast episode on this and the rep for the government fucked up so badly when questioned on whether the policy could be extended to censor books. It made me cringe. The judges made their decision out of an interest to protect the first amendment from abuse. I think the fault lies with the rep, he should've done a better job explaining himself.

Not only should every public hearing start like this, it should be highly organized on the part of the speakers so that when they escort out one speaker, the next just picks up where they got cut off...and so on and so on. The bastards.

He said he mixed up countries when talking about no-go zones in the Netherlands.

So he confused his own birth country with some other country where they are burning cars and politicians. Bullshit. He was right that it was fake news. Only it wasn't the news that he said that that was fake. It was the words out of his own mouth that was fake news to push an agenda. So he was in fact right when he called it fake news.

I think the problem is that if the media is too forward, they get blacklisted from important events. No individual journalist wants to get fired for getting their company blacklisted from ever going to a Whitehouse press release event.

It's interesting because the US paparazzi have absolutely no shame or qualms about asking horribly insensitive questions. While US journalists are basically neutered out of fear of getting blacklisted from events. I just wish there was a happy medium.

I mean, as a scientist I have to disclose my ties to any donors in order to publish literally anything anywhere. Explicitly and up front every time. Don't see why the people running our government should be any different.

"As I tried to give my remarks at the public hearing this morning on HB4268 in defense of our constitutional property rights, I got dragged out of House chambers.

Why? Because I was listing out who has been donating to Delegates on the Judiciary Committee.

This is, of course, public information.

Allow me to point out that if Delegates genuinely think that my talking about who their campaign donors are—and how much they’re receiving from corporate lobbyists/corporate PACs—is an ad hominem attack… then they should be refusing those donations.

I tried sharing them to a couple groups I am in that are concerned with grassroots movements and getting rid of corruption and the response I got was "lawl get rid of corruption by donating to us huehuehue!!1!"

"Delegates, voting to help the corporations that bought you is moral turpitude. And if y’all vote to enable Big Government to tell tax paying citizens what we can do with our own durn property, you can bet there will be people like me coming out of the woodwork to challenge you… and to make sure you either represent the people, or you get the hell out."

She is doing what many more ethical, electable people ought to: actually running. Putting her money where her mouth is, and vying to replace these cronies herself. I hope it inspires more of us to do the same, even if it seems like there’s no hope. Without a wagon to push, however meager it starts off, there’s no chance of it gaining steam.

What's even worse is if you bring it up and say it should be fair and square you get people even HERE saying "That's just the name of the game either play it or stop crying." Like it's so normalized that people don't even bat an eye to be corrupt.

I'm not sure what bothers me more. Accepting corporate "donations" to sell out their country or how little money it takes to get someone to sell out their country. What an amazing ROI for these corporations. I'm not just referring to this instance.

I am fucking disgusted by what democracy has come to represent in the states. Removing her right to speak and address issues and silencing her on the platform she is supposed to use as a citizen to be heard.

Actually, I’m a First Amendment lawyer and I’m not sure. It’s a complex question that depends on how W Va has treated this comment period in the past.

Edit: if you’re interested in how speech rights work at public meetings like this, there’s a Supreme Court case on this issue being argued 2/27! Check out Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach. The man speaking there was not only removed but arrested.

The real kicker is...listen to republican radio shows, podcasts, etc. Those people know that "democracy" has no place here. It's all about the republic or "representative democracy". The people that might have enough intelligence to see what it wrong only justify it through technicalities of language.

Personally...I could not care less about my label, I just want policies and decisions that help the public as a whole. Yes, I want some hard look into the money aspect of it and how it's paid for, but for fuck's sake...let's help the country as a whole and not just your donors.

You know, I am a Dutch guy who has been living in the USA for 6 years now. Married. I like the people here. Hard working. But your government and medical care is horrid. Absolutely shocking and disgusting.

The amount of manipulation and money talking that goes around here is insane. I am not saying the rest of the world doesn't have similar issues, but it's so obvious here it's near frightening. People are borderline scared of each other just living in the same country, it doesn't surprise me that the majority wants their own guns.

I'm legit saddened by this too, because I grew up with movies and news from the USA, and it was truly the land of the free, an awesome place you had to go and enjoy life. I wasn't living here in the past but... the present is quite shocking.

And the hardcore truth is nobody will do anything because it's so ingrained already this financial manipulation. People voted Trump in after all. It's just about getting outraged online, maybe throwing a few dollars at it and then moving onto the next thing that outrages you while the companies keep paying your politicians without issue.

Ironically all the guns owned by these people aren't preventing their rights being taken away. They hold onto their guns and continue to watch their rights just erode into nothing, sometimes while cheering it on. The guns are like a teddy bear - helping the owner to feel warm and fuzzy while nefarious dealings go on.

Yes.. but keep track of this city and these people.. nothing will happen to them. Absolutely nothing. They are shameless pricks and they will sit there and collect their fat cheques. Just look at Ashit Pai.

It started before that with Buckley v valeo in 76. Before that there were limits on what candidates could spend and required them to disclose where they got the money from. Buckley Vs valeo unlocked unlimited spending and removed the non disclosure requirement. Citizens united unlocked unlimited amounts spent by corporations.

To be blunt you'll find most people in power to be very unaware of how they are viewed outside their own bubble or how to comport themselves when things happen that they don't like.

Succumbing to the trappings of office is just par for the course, everyone wants your ear, all the lobbyists are polite and bare gifts and nice dinners, your aides are happy just to have a job and be close to where the "action" is. Even a seat on the town council has developers and businesses trying to curry your favor. The bubble is nice to be in because everyone is nice to you and you've got power to boot, hey you can vote for stuff and it happens! And then all the people that talk your ear off and take you to dinner, pat you on the back and promise they'll be their to help you with whatever you need, and hey don't even worry about that next election.

Then someone comes into your playground and starts saying mean things to you, they're not being nice, you don't like it and you want them gone, those big meanies with their facts calling you out on your bullshit. That's why you see morons in power ejecting people behaving in a civil fashion from delegating on these issues and having it blow up on them.

A person that hasn't operated in that political environment thinks to themselves why wouldn't they just let them speak and move on, no one will ever hear about it anyway? But some of these people have been in the bubble for decades, they just can't let what they view as disrespect continue because that degrades their sense of control. It's their playground and they just want the big meanie saying those hurtful things out the door. Their bubble has been broken and some of them just can't take it so they lash out and you get things like this and the teacher that was thrown out of the board of education meeting a few weeks ago. The smart play would be to just let them speak but the bubble rules them and leads them to folly.

I mean if someone comes up to you and says "I'll give you $1k-$10k to vote for Trump", most people would just say yes. Now imagine if you don't even have to go anywhere, and the voting box is at your job.

It always requires very little, numbers wise. She's listing off numbers as low as $150 (I'm not missing a zero there; one hundred and fifty dollars) in the complete list from her website. People are legit getting bought off with money that won't even cover a month of groceries.

Oh hell no. My town hall is all paid off by companies and other higher up representatives and full of nepotism. They horde money, they don't repair anything and are currently paying thousands of town dollars a week for a lawyer to make sure they fight off a union for the town highway. All so they don't have to release their books which show them with millions of dollars when they claim they have nothing. (if they had nothing they wouldn't have the lawyer and wouldn't have just gotten raises worth 10s of thousands or hired their son for a 100,000 dollar contract when his contract is for a job they had filled that paid 35,000.) This is politics and it's shitty.

I mean, if Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos wanted, they could probably spend a few billion dollars and rule the nation. Or they could apparently spend a few hundred thousand dollars and practically have their own states.

You're absolutely right. You could hear her voice shaking at times. And yet she never backed down. She knew what she was doing, and that those in power wouldn't like it. But she did it anyway. Kudos to her.

All it really takes is the willingness to risk embarrassment. That’s probably what stops a lot of people before they start. People are scared they might stand in front of someone and then their opponent will make them look stupid, which is actually possibility... or they could end up like her, with the majority of people here cheering her on.

I bet if she continued to do this kind of thing she might end up looking really silly a couple of times too, but it’s still totally worth it.

Yeah it was a deliberate misuse of what is intended as a rule to maintain civility - not a rule of order that's designed to censor people from pointing out potential corruption.

Getting herself kicked out is exactly what she needed for her argument to be heard by the most people, and as a protestor that's probably the best outcome she could hope for in that situation. She behaved politely, but remained resolute, she had the facts with her, and she let the bad behavior of her opponents add credibility to her argument.

If they had let her continue and done nothing, letting the 1minute 45seconds run out, then they could have easily packed the open forum with a couple dozen other people - all talking their own nonsense about the bill - and her comments would have been drowned out in the noise.

Their reaction to her statement is what convinces people that there is a truth to her story.

Agreed. Kicking her out was incredibly stupid. She had, what, 25 seconds left of her time? They robbed her of that and now she has this headline, which is way more valuable for her and damaging for them.

When they’re on tv or mentioned in print, there should be a footnote that lists their “special interests” or potential conflicts of interests. If investment bankers have to do this now, so should politicians.

I am a sonographer and have been telling my patients your/this since the beginning of superPACs, about 10 years ago. Over tfhe years, tfhe idea has evolved a bit. There should be a app/site with caricatures... as you click/hover over the company logo (size proportionate to donation to said politician), it tells you their company political interests and motives. Accountability is sooo needed.

I could see this being a browser plugin so any mention of a politician online can be annotated. Open Secrets [https://www.opensecrets.org] tracks who politicians are getting their donations from. I'm going to check if they have an API right now.

I just don't understand why they need to even flex their power. It's not like what she says will even affect the situation or the vote. She has less than two minutes to just say whatever and she would be gone, but they have to throw her out.

Why not just calmly say, "ok, thank you for that, your time is up. Next person?"

That's exactly it. This wouldn't be on the front page of reddit if she hadn't been thrown out. Maybe there'd be a couple local stories about it and their challengers next time they're up for reelection would get a sound bite for their opposition ads but that's about it.

I’m very much on her side and not defending that she was silenced. At all. To answer how she can be kicked out: The grounds for a public meeting are set by rules for things like what you can talk about, who you may address, how much time you get, what you have to wear, and so on. Some meetings will require that you prepare/present a summary of what you will talk about before being accepted to speak. A good set of rules will even define exactly how to handle someone breaking the rules. It’s an awkward balance of hearing speakers vs having a productive meeting.

I think she somewhat expected this and she knew how to deal with it by leaving peacefully while making her point. Hopefully she will be able to continue doing it — by being silenced she has spoken louder than many of us ever do.

I’m Lissa Lucas from beautiful Ritchie County, WV, right in the front lines of the Marcellus. I’m a mineral owner. And I’m here to tell you that ALL of us, no matter our party, want our property rights protected. The attack on property rights is an assault on rural people, and it goes against both party platforms.
While lobbyists have the money to buy your time at fancy gatherings like the Wine and Whisky gala at the Marriott on Wednesday—members of the public have been allotted just about 2 minutes each to make the case for our rights, so I’ll just have time to talk about four delegates.

Delegates you cannot, without the appearance of impropriety—and likely without actual impropriety—vote for this bill.

For those watching online or in the gallery, if your delegate votes to give away your rights to their corporate donors, you should get behind a candidate who’ll work for YOU, rather than someone who is getting paid to hand over your property rights to corporations. Save for Del Harshbarger, there are Republicans challenging them in the primary, and a Democrat who will challenge the winner, so in most cases there’s someone no matter your political persuasion.

Full disclosure: There is a Democratic challenger for Harshbarger—that would be me. But I’m here to talk about the sale of our constitutional rights, not to campaign. So let’s move on to Delegate Armstead.

Armstead is not a member of this committee, but he’s the guy who makes committee assignments for his party. His donors include the usual suspects—AEP, EQT, Dominion, FirstEnergy, etc. He got nearly $20K ($19,550) from energy donors, about 21% of his total. He seated on this committee everyone I’ve just talked about, and people I haven’t been allotted the time to talk about. Yeah, he’s working for those same donors, too.
Delegates, voting to help the corporations that bought you is moral turpitude. And if y’all vote to enable Big Government to tell tax paying citizens what we can do with our own durn property, you can bet there will be people like me coming out of the woodwork to challenge you… and to make sure you either represent the people, or you get the hell out.

I just donated her $100. We can complain all we want about the toxic culture where corporations buy voices in the legislature, but unless regular folks pitch in nothing's going to change. I hope my contribution makes a difference in some way, however small.

She sounds genuinely afraid to be up there speaking. That was very courageous of her to stand in their chambers, and call them out for essentially selling their votes to special interests, and to people who have far more power, money and influence than she does.

Unfortunately, governments will respond by continuing to remove people, or eliminating periods of public comment.